John Watson versus Fancy Dress
by ClassyGirlsWearPearls
Summary: Sherlock and John go undercover in late Victorian era costumes. There is dancing.


**A/N: Navydream is having a rough time, so I promised her a story. Hope you like it, doll!**

**As always, I own nothing. My deepest and sincerest apologies to ACD and Mofftiss for stealing their toys and playing with them.**

John hated fancy dress parties, which might surprise some people. The man lived with Sherlock for fuck's sake. He put up with a lot. You would think that would make him want to let his metaphorical hair down for a night or two and be just a little silly.

Wrong.

The occupant of the upstairs flat of 221B Baker Street who enjoyed dressing up, dancing, all of those sorts of things, was none other than the sociopathic consulting detective himself. John had only been into the particular wardrobe in what used to be his bedroom twice to fetch something for the Consulting Git when he was being too lazy to climb up a rather short flight of stairs in order to reach it. It was filled with costumes. Filled to the point where John had to lean into it with his back until it clicked shut.

Generally, Sherlock's costumes were not costumes. They were disguises. _Honestly John, why would I go out on a day that isn't Halloween dressed as a fireman? Why would I even get dressed up for such an inane holiday in the first place?_ So no, Sherlock Holmes did not "play dress up" with the contents of that armoire. That armoire was how he trapped criminals and was able to bring them to Lestrade.

Needless to say that when Sherlock returned home with two heavy looking garment bags and a grin like Christmas had come early, John was a bit concerned. Sherlock's costume collection seemed pretty complete – hell, there were even two sets of lingerie in there that had been designed for men that John desperately wanted to see Sherlock in even though the man refused – and going by the size of those garment bags these outfits were going to need a new home. Perhaps a new armoire to place next to the one in the now guest bedroom.

Afraid of the answer he was going to get, John asked, "What've you got there?"

"Costumes for a fancy dress party," Sherlock said in the same tone that a normal person would have announced that tea was ready. He sauntered down the hall to the bedroom and John could hear the closet door opening and the _clink_ of hangers settling on the bars. John decided to continue reviewing a quite interesting draft of a paper on the immunity that people of African descent had against some of the ingredients of Gardasil until Sherlock decided to come back into the living room.

It took him ten minutes to come back in, and John couldn't have been more shocked. Stood in front of him was Sherlock Holmes, but looking like he had just walked out of 1886. He wore breeches that clearly were held up by strings and not buttons, and his shirt was white and starched within an inch of its life with a tight bowtie around his collar–. He wore a deep purple overcoat in a similar shade that John's favorite shirt was. Over that was a long black coat that reached just above his knees. Even his shoes looked authentic. The cherry on top (quite literally) was the Abraham Lincoln style top hat that he wore.

"What do you think?" Sherlock asked, twirling around.

John's mouth was drying out very quickly. He had to think of something to say fast, and unfortunately the first thing that came to mind was, "You look positively fuckable."

Sherlock gave a huff. "As flattering as that is, what do you think of it aside from that?"

"I don't know," John shrugged. "You looked like you walked straight out of that magazine that used to publish back in in the 19th century. _The Strand_, that's what it was called."

Sherlock smirked and straightened the bowtie in the mirror above the fireplace. "Good. That's exactly what we're going for."

"I'm sorry, _'we,'_" John asked, befuddled.

"Yes, John, the two of us are going to a fancy dress party in a week's time in order to solve a case." His mouth quirked up. "We'll also have the opportunity to see some of the Yarders dressed up in absolutely ridiculous costumes. I need extra dirt on some of them for blackmail."

"If most of the Yard is showing up, then they'll already know what people dressed like," John pointed out, still hoping for a way to weasel out of this ordeal.

"Yes, but future Yarders and transfers from other cities that could be some of their superiors could know," Sherlock said with a twinkle in his eye. John hadn't seen him this excited since that disgusting triple homicide that they'd gone to Berkshire to investigate.

"Why can't you go alone?" John asked, using his final card.

"You know that none of them like me," Sherlock replied, a hint of contempt in his voice. "If you're there, they'll be less nasty."

"Alright. I'm sorry sweetheart," John sagged. "This is just because I'm married to you Sherlock Holmes. If you ask me to go to another fancy dress party the answer will be no, but just this once. Understand?"

Sherlock nodded, but the look on his face made it fairly plain to John that he would be attending more fancy dress parties because his significant other wanted to.

The case was fairly straightforward when Sherlock explained it. The hotel that the party was being held at was owned by a man with connections to the Russian Mafia. There had been a few tips from a mole that the Met had planted inside of their ranks about child sex trafficking and some drugs that had come into the country illegally. With the help of branches of the government that had access to highly superior surveillance techniques (Mycroft), there was photo evidence of this man and several of his workers involvement in these crimes.

John and Sherlock were not the only people who weren't supposed to be at the party. They had invitations thanks to the undercover Yarder who had been assigned the task of planning this gala, but there were also several police officers with tickets who were dressed for a night of costumes and whatever debauchery came with a fancy dress party.

The mission was simple. They were aware of the code words that would let the people in the inner circle know that they wanted to look at some of the children that had been smuggled in (with Sherlock's drug history, they had all decided to go for the children rather than the drugs. Those could be sorted later). All they had to do was mingle and look like they belonged, then they were supposed to ask for a certain member of the group, which was their informant, and he would take them straight to the Sergei Brezhnev. It should be simple.

Wrong.

There was a slight problem with John's costume. Oh, it fit fine. Sherlock gave the tailor the measurements so naturally there was nothing wrong with it. It was just _the costume._

It was essentially the same as Sherlock's, but Sherlock had chosen a lovely cornflower color in order to match John's eyes. Not only did they match, but they popped like Sherlock had never seen the pop before. He wore a bowler hat rather than a top hat, and it suited his rounder face just like the length of Sherlock's fit his face.

"I hope you know," Sherlock muttered into John's ear. "That when we get home I am going to take this off piece by piece and have my illegal, Victorian, wicked way with you, Dr. Watson."

John smiled as he opened the door to the car that Mycroft had sent for them. As Sherlock slid in, he said, "I plan on returning the favor."

As usual, nothing went as planned.

Well, some things went as planned. Sherlock and John had a fabulous beginning to the gala. They had a glass of champagne, sampled some of the finest food that John had ever tasted, and they made small talk with some of the actual patrons. They had taken a brief interlude to dance because Sherlock loved dancing. John always let him lead. He was comfortable enough in his masculinity to follow, and if he had lead, they would have ended up as the laughing stock of the gala. After their few dances, Sherlock was rather giddy and decided that this was a good time to talk to the informant about purchasing some children who had been smuggled in a metal box from their homes.

There was always a chance that the informant had actually defected to the Russians. That chance was very small, and therefore when the call came from their informant that there were members of the Metropolitan Police Force in the room there was was a shortage of Yarders there in order to try to restore peace in the ballroom akin to the shortage of lifeboats on the Titanic. At the first gunshot, John pulled Sherlock into a corner and they propped a table up in front of them. It wasn't the best shield, but there would at least be something between them and bullets.

John was a resourceful man, no matter what Sherlock said, and he pulled his gun out of one of the lapel pockets on his overcoat and began to fire. Sherlock couldn't tell if he had hit anyone, but there seemed to be fewer shots fired than there originally were.

After what felt like forever, Lestrade, decked in body armor from head to toe, was in front of them. He was carrying two vests and two helmets. They took the hint and put on the gear, and then Lestrade motioned for them to get behind them. His weapon (which he shouldn't have had – technically none of these officers should have had anything more powerful than a Taser) was drawn and cocked, ready to fire. John put himself directly behind Lestrade and crouched low in case Lestrade's arm jerked back when he fired his gun and elbowed him in the face and had his gun at the ready.

It took them nearly two minutes to get to safety, but once they had been wrestled into Lestrade's squad car (purely for protection) the man turned around that the two of them and said, "You're damn lucky you wore a blue waistcoat John or I would never have spotted the two of you."

John laughed heartily at that one. "It pays when your partner gets something that matches your eyes."

"Don't get me started on that," Lestrade grumbled. "I love him to death, but if Mycroft buys me one more matching tie and pocket square that match some feature or article of clothing I have I will hang myself from the shower rod with said tie."

"I warned you he was meddlesome," Sherlock sighed.

"Yeah, well too bad for you I love everything else about him."

"He hates football."

"I love almost everything about him."

John was laughing at the bickering when they pulled up at their house. "I've posted officers at every possible entry point including the bins. You are not going to shake these people. Until the mob members are fully in custody and we can give some cover story about the two of you being within a few blocks of the firefight they're going to stay here."

"Mycroft already has people watching me," Sherlock moaned. "You're just as meddlesome as he is now. It's rubbed off on you." With a slam of the door Sherlock was gone.

"Don't worry, I'll keep him in line," John promised. "Thanks for the extra security. I know that you aren't exactly swimming in officers and this will put a strain on the Met. It means a lot."

"Just trying to make sure you two make it to retirement," Lestrade said with a chuckled. "Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go and chat with my meddlesome partner about what your cover story is going to be after the guys we caught have been tried."

John nodded as he stepped out of the car. "Let us know if you need any help with that."

As John bounded up the seventeen steps to his flat, he could hear a somewhat crackly record coming from the gramophone that Sherlock had in the corner of their sitting room. He leaned against the doorframe while watching Sherlock fuss over it to try to get the sound better. He thought that this probably wasn't the time to suggest that the record was old and might be on its last legs.

"Normally I hate greatest hits albums," Sherlock commented. "There is an art to the order that you put songs or movements into, and that is ruined by this 'greatest hits' fad. Even if the artist is involved in deciding which songs go where, what would the point be if there was a song that was supposed to follow a greatest hit for symbolic reasons that wasn't a greatest hit and didn't make it on the greatest hits album? Travesty," he tutted.

John hummed and put his arm around Sherlock's waist. "I take it that this is a greatest hits album. Why choose to play it if you're so irked by it?"

"Just listen to who it is," Sherlock said softly. A few seconds after he had finished fiddling with the gramophone and was getting the best sound that such antiquated equipment could muster and Marvin Gaye floated out of the speaker. "I've always found him rather romantic, and this album contains some of his most popular love songs. Given how tonight could have turned out, I think that we should just relax and think about us as a couple and how much we love each other."

John leaned up to kiss Sherlock. "That's so sweet," he sighed. "Come on, dance with me."

"You don't dance," Sherlock protested, but John was already pulling him close and shuffling a bit.

"I only dance for you," John smiled, and Sherlock smiled back.

They spent a long time dancing around their front room until the album needed to be flipped.

"Do you want to get it or should I?" John asked.

"No," Sherlock mumbled. He was still dancing.

"The music-"

"Let's go to bed, John," Sherlock said with the pre-coital fire that John loved so much in his eyes.

John pushed himself back on his toes and kissed Sherlock. "I believe someone promised to peel off my outfit piece by piece before having his wicked way with me just a few hours ago."

"Oh Dr. Watson," Sherlock purred. "This isn't just wicked. This is _danger._ Homosexuality was illegal when people wore these clothes. We would have been arrested and, at the hand of the most merciful judge in the country, simply thrown in prison."

"Then we'd best be quiet about it," John whispered, his lips trailing down Sherlock's neck and his skilled fingers untying the bowtie.

"We're never quiet," Sherlock pointed out.

"That's because you're a bit of a screamer," John teased. Perhaps I'll have to gag you with the bowties?" Honest to God, John didn't think that would be something that excited Sherlock or something that they would do that night.

John Watson still doesn't like fancy dress parties, but he does love the lingerie designed specifically for men that he made Sherlock order several pairs of as well as the Victorian costumes that they occasionally wear with the doors locked. They call each other "Holmes" and "Watson" and carry fake pipes and are very quiet when they make love. The tailor always wonders why they need black bowties so frequently.

The best days are when Sherlock wears the lingerie under his Victorian clothes. Those are the days that John usually has to be gagged.

All in all, fancy dress is something that John Watson is no longer vehemently opposed to thanks to some 1880s style Victorian menswear – and of course some positively _filthy_ undergarments underneath them.

**A/N: A couple of notes:**

**1. There are a few canon references. See if you can spot them!**

**2. There is the last name of a leader of the former Soviet Union. See if you can guess that. Hint: the only Russian name is...**

**3, There used to be a huge problem with the Russian Mafia in London. Though the situation is much better now, I would postulate that these are residual splinter cells who want to reestablish their dominance in the London crime scene.**

**4. Sherlock needed to dance with someone.**

**5. These guys are dorks and I hate them.**

**6. They're my babies I love them I lied.**

**The reference to people of African descent and the VERY IMPORTANT vaccination, Gardasil, is also true. Many ethnic Africans are more affected by strains of HPV that there aren't antibodies for in Gardasil and similar drugs because the prevalence of other HPV strains are more widespread in the whole population. Everyone should be vaccinated with this drug if it is available to you (if you're in the US, Obamacare covers it for males and females yay!), but ladies you should also get annual pap smears to be extra thorough. Many gynecologic cancers are virtually undetectable without one, and three in five women who die of these cancers either hadn't had a pap smear in years or had never had one.**

**Long story short: take care of yourself. Have safe sex. Get ALL THREE of your Gardasil shots. Use condoms when you aren't with a long term partner. Use condoms with a long term partner if you don't want to get pregnant. Look into the IUD and the implant (which I have and that shit is way awesome) as alternative and highly effective methods of birth control if you aren't looking to have kids right now.**

**Also I have a tumblr now. The username is classygirlswearpearlswriting. Go check it out!**


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